It just so happened that for most of my life I've lived in the suburbs.

You could say that this book is ripped from the headlines, but that wouldn't be fair. Bret Anthony Johnston's riveting novel picks up where the tabloids leave off, and takes us places even the best journalism can't go. Remember Me Like This is a wise, moving, and troubling novel about family and identity, and a clear-eyed inventory of loss and redemption.

Nothing beats novel writing because it's complete expression of you. You just control everything. Not even a movie director has that level of control.

I was writing very early, like I was involved in our high school literary magazine, which was called 'Pariah.' The football team was the Bears, and the literary magazine was 'Pariah.' It was great. It was definitely a real sub-culture. But I wrote stories for them.

Meg was going to have to learn for herself what Laurie had figured out over the summer - that it was better to leave well enough alone, to avoid unnecessary encounters with the people you'd left behind, to not keep poking at that sore tooth with the tip of your tongue. Not because you didn't love them anymore, but because you did, and because that love was useless now, just another dull ache in your phantom limb.

It just took some people a little longer than others to realize how few words they needed to get by, how much of life they could negotiate in silence.

I don't really distinguish between sympathy and honesty when I'm writing. The two go together - I'm interested in inhabiting my characters, seeing the world through their eyes.